Friday, December 07, 2012

South Korean rapper and Internet sensation PSY is apologizing to Americans for participating in anti-U.S. protests several years ago.

Park Jae-sang, who performs as PSY, issued a statement Friday after reports surfaced that he had participated in concerts protesting the U.S. military presence in South Korea during the early stages of the Iraq war.

At a 2004 concert, the "Gangnam Style" rapper performs a song with lyrics about killing "Yankees" who have been torturing Iraqi captives and their families "slowly and painfully." During a 2002 concert, he smashed a model of a U.S. tank on stage.More

Maryland officials are asking residents of the lower Eastern Shore to report any damage that they had from superstorm Sandy, as the state appeals a denial of individual assistance by the federal government.

The Maryland Emergency Management Agency says local, state, and federal damage assessment teams are back on the lower Eastern Shore to make sure information on all damage is reported.More

A longtime U.S. senator and champion of truth about global warming is revealing to taxpayers that Barack Obama in recent years has sent billions of taxpayer dollars to the United Nations to use for global warming issues – secretly.“Three years ago, President Obama helped create a United Nations Green Slush Fund that would redistribute over $100 billion from developed countries to developing countries,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said in a video message released online.

“While he has been racking up huge deficits and talking up tax increases, the president has already sent billions of American taxpayer dollars to the United Nations – and he’s managed to do it quietly so that no one will notice,” Inhofe said.More

The student government at the University of California-Berkeley (CAL) passed a resolution last month that would ban Salvation Army bell ringers and their iconic red kettles from campus this Christmas because of the Christian organization’s alleged bias against homosexuality.

The resolution, cleared on November 14, accuses the charity of openly discriminating against gay individuals.

“Salvation Army church services, including charity services, are available only to people ‘who accept and abide by the Salvation Army’s doctrine and discipline,’ which excludes homosexuality,” reads the bill, SB 176.

In the resolution, the student body also demands school administrators revoke the Salvation Army’s permit, which currently allows them to collect donations on the Berkeley campus.More

A TSA screener working at John F. Kennedy Airport has been arrested for stealing iPads and other electronics from passengers, as found through a recent sting operation.

Believe it or not, this is also not the first time a TSA officer has gotten busted in a sting operation— and for iPad theft no less.

NBC New York reported that Sean Henry from Brooklyn was caught when he took items from decoy bags in the operation organized by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in cooperation with the TSA.More

While working the cash register, Marge Stevens’ eyes reddened with tears Wednesday as the 84-year-old shop owner told customers the news.

After 53 years of doing business beside Annapolis’ harbor, Stevens Hardware will close at the end of this month, after years of sagging sales.

Some residents say shuttering the business will end an era for downtown. The district has shifted from a place people went to shop for groceries, bait and household staples to one where they dine on surf and turf and buy crab-embellished shot glasses.

Since 1870, three families have continuously operated a hardware store at the Stevens building on the corner of Dock and Randall streets.More

About 60 percent of doctors in Maryland are using electronic health records, slightly lower than the national average, according to a new report by the National Center for Health Data.

Nationally, the number of doctors who are using electronic records and who say they plan to apply for financial incentives through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are up in 2012, compared with last year, according to preliminary data in the report.

In 2012 about 66 percent of office-based Maryland doctors use some kind of electronic health record system, compared with a national average of 72 percent. Nationally, use of electronic health records is up from 57 percent in 2011.More

Since 1933, the governors of Delaware have proclaimed December 7 as Delaware Day in honor of that day in 1787, when Delaware became the first state to ratify the Federal Constitution, thus making Delaware the first state in the New Nation.

Thanks to the efforts of a wise Delaware educator and legislator, Mr. E. Paul Burkholder along with the Rotary Club of Georgetown, a statewide effort was made in 1933 to have December 7 established as Delaware Day. He and this Rotary Club secured more than 6,000 signatures on petitions, which were presented to the Governor and to the legislature. As a result, a House Joint Resolution was passed and approved on November 29, 1933. The first Delaware Day celebration was held December 7, 1933, by proclamation of Governor C. Douglass Buck.More

Anti-smoking efforts nationwide remain woefully underfunded as states squander most of their tobacco tax revenue, a major report from a coalition of public health groups shows.

For fiscal 2013, states will receive nearly $26 billion through a combination of cigarette taxes and revenue from their landmark 1998 legal settlement with U.S. tobacco companies. Only $459 million will go to smoking prevention campaigns and other initiatives to help addicts quit, with some states — such as New Jersey, Ohio, New Hampshire and North Carolina — spending nothing on the efforts, according to the joint study by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and other organizations.

“The paltry amount of money that states spend on tobacco prevention and cessation programs is extremely disappointing,” said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association. “If the funds were used as intended to discourage children from smoking and help current smokers quit, we would see the real impact of tobacco use prevention on health care costs. These programs work and it’s time for states to put more skin in the game.”More

The Wisconsin man, who has fathered nine children with six women, was ordered yesterday to cease procreating until he can support his numerous offspring.

At Curtis’s sentencing yesterday for bail jumping and failure to pay child support, Circuit Court Judge Tim Boyle told the 44-year-old Racine man that his frequent breeding was to be curbed as a condition of his three-year probation term.

Curtis owes about $90,000 total in back child support and interest to the mothers of his children. Pictured in the above mug shot, Curtis will have to wipe out that debt before he can add heir number ten, ruled Boyle.

Court records show that Curtis has been arrested and charged with failure to pay child support on numerous occasions over the past 11 years. His rap sheet also includes convictions for passing bad checks, criminal damage, and burglary.More

On “The Tonight Show,” host Jay Leno joked that leaders from American Indian tribes honored President Obama at the Tribal Conference in Washington, D.C. yesterday with his own Indian name: “Running Deficits.”More

The lights will be on and Santa is here on the weekends so pack up the kids and the camera and come visit Santa.The display (weather permitting) is openFriday 6-9pmSaturday 6-10pmSunday 6-8pmVisit us on Facebook HERE.

A Texas burglary suspect called 911 early Tuesday morning to report that a homeowner was holding him at gunpoint and threatening to shoot him, KDFW reports.

Homeowner James Gerow said he awoke at around 12:30 a.m. and found a man wearing dark clothes and a hoodie inside his Springtown home. He then retrieved his legally owned gun and followed the man out to a truck that was parked in his driveway.

Wielding his firearm, Gerow ordered the suspected burglar to give him the keys to the vehicle and told his wife to call 911 while he held the suspect at gunpoint.More

The Mayor and City Council approved two ordinances this week having to do with an amendment to paid parking enforcement dates and an increase in fines when it comes to noise complaints.

In late November, Public Works Director Hal Adkins brought to the council’s attention confusion among regarding dates of paid parking enforcement.

Adkins explained historically the town would commence paid parking on April 1 of each year and end it in October, but by resolution the dates were removed and replaced with “specific weekends" to allow the town the ability to maximize potential revenues due to the fluctuation in the date of Easter and the growing calendar of special events.More

In an effort to ease the burden of being stricken with a debilitating condition, the Social Security Administration is expanding a program that fast-tracks disability claims by people who get serious illnesses such as cancer, early-onset Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease -- claims that could take months or years to approve in the past.

While providing faster benefits, the program also is designed to ease the workload of an agency that has been swamped by disability claims since the economic recession a few years ago.

Disability claims are up by more than 20 percent from 2008. The Compassionate Allowances program approves many claims for a select group of conditions within a few days, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said. The program is being expanded today to include a total of 200 diseases and conditions.More

Hobby Lobby may be forced to abandon founding principles or go out of business--

Letter from Hobby Lobby Stores CEO

By David Green, the founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

When my family and I started our company 40 years ago, we were working out of a garage on a $600 bank loan, assembling miniature picture frames. Our first retail store wasn't much bigger than most people's living rooms, but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God's word. From there, Hobby Lobby has become one of the nation's largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 locations in 41 states. Our children grew up into fine business leaders, and today we run Hobby Lobby together, as a family.

We're Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. I've always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with God's laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money. And that's what we've tried to do. We close early so our employees can see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the week's biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We believe that it is by God's grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and he has blessed us and our employees. We've not only added jobs in a weak economy, we've raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80% above minimum wage.

But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government healthcare mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don't pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we don't cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million PER DAY in government fines.

Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy. Our government threatens to fine a company that's raised wages four years running. Our government threatens to fine a family for running its business according to its beliefs. It's not right. I know people will say we ought to follow the rules; that it's the same for everybody. But that's not true. The government has exempted thousands of companies from this mandate, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it won't exempt them for reasons of religious belief.

So, Hobby Lobby and my family are forced to make a choice.

With great reluctance, we filed a lawsuit today, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asking a federal court to stop this mandate before it hurts our business. We don't like to go running into court, but we no longer have a choice. We believe people are more important than the bottom line and that honoring God is more important than turning a profit.

My family has lived the American dream. We want to continue growing our company and providing great jobs for thousands of employees, but the government is going to make that much more difficult. The government is forcing us to choose between following our faith and following the law. I say that's a choice no American and no American business should have to make.

The government cannot force you to follow laws that go against your fundamental religious belief. They have exempted thousands of companies but will not except Christian organizations including the Catholic church.

Since you will not see this covered in any of the liberal media, pass this on to all your contacts.

LANSING, Mich. — After weeks of speculation, Michigan’s GOP-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder on Thursday pushed ahead with a bill to make this historic labor stronghold a right-to-work state, sparking a clash in the state Capitol and setting up what could be an epic fight watched by union and management supporters nationwide.

As police outside pushed back protesters with pepper spray, the GOP-dominated state House of Representatives, by a 58-52 vote, quickly approved the Workplace Equity and Fairness Act, which would end mandatory union-dues collection at any Michigan company and would apply to public and private workers with the exception of firefighters and police.

Later Thursday, the state Senate, where Republicans hold a healthy 26-12 margin, also passed the legislation.More

Hyperinflation and the Pernicious Myth of Modern Monetary Theory: Dollar Vigilantes

“One might argue that when the government has to find a private sector buyer for its debt first, rather than selling the debt directly to the central bank, that imposes a certain degree of market discipline on fiscal policy. But it’s hard to see that there is all that much of a disciplinary bonus here.

When a central bank announces that it is prepared to buy government securities, the announcement automatically guarantees an eager private sector market for the securities – if there wasn’t one already. If dealers know that they can promptly re-sell newly purchased securities to the central bank, at some amount over the purchase price no matter how low, then they know they can make a profit from the purchase…

This is why we have no need to worry about those dreaded bond vigilantes in a country like the US that controls its own currency and monetary operations. To the extent that the Fed signals it is willing to buy US debt aggressively, the Treasury can set almost any price it wants for its debt. So it’s not just that there is no insolvency threat haunting US public debt. There is also not a bond vigilante attack threat – not unless the Fed allows that attack to occur.”

After a dead whale washed up on a beach in Malibu, Calif., near Bob Dylan's home it wasn't long before a foul smell was blowin' in the wind and residents were demanding answers. Although dead whales don't often arrive in wealthy neighborhoods, they do come ashore on beaches across the country fairly frequently. Getting rid of them is often not easy.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR GETTING RID OF A DEAD WHALE?

In this case there is disagreement, because the 41-foot mammal ended up on a private beach. Malibu officials say they aren't sure who should haul it away. The Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors says it isn't responsible because the whale is on private property, meaning it's up to the owners to get rid of it.

CAN LOS ANGELES COUNTY LIFEGUARDS HAUL IT AWAY?

Maybe, but that agency says it may big too big for one of its Baywatch boats to handle. They say it could require a tugboat like those used to guide giant ships in and out of ocean harbors. The lifeguards have indicated they'll try when the tide is right.More

In the fiscal feud between President Obama and Republican lawmakers, economists agree that Washington could raise several hundred billion dollars by limiting tax deductions and closing loopholes for the wealthy, but charities likely would take a big hit in donations.

At the center of the dispute between Mr. Obama and the GOP is whether they could raise enough revenue for a deal on deficit reduction without raising tax rates on families earning more than $250,000 per year.

Some economists say revenue could be raised on the order of $1 trillion over a decade without raising rates, more than the $800 billion proposed by Republicans but short of the $1.6 trillion sought by Mr. Obama.More

The lasting impact thatconcussions can have on the brain is on the minds of anyone involved in football, from parents of the youngest Pop Warner players to those in the professional ranks.

More and more players in the NFL are succumbing to symptoms of memory loss, inability to concentrate and changes in personality that they attribute to repeated blows to the head during play. But as their numbers grow, researchers are struggling to keep up with understanding the brain injuries that concussions can cause. Now, for the first time, scientists are classifying the brain injury from head trauma into four distinct stages.

Fox News' Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade seemed perturbed Wednesday morning after they learned that some MSNBC hosts and "influential progressives" were invited to meet with the president at the White House on Tuesday.

President Obama met with Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Ed Schultz. The Huffington Post Media Group's Arianna Huffington was also in attendance. White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest released a statement saying that "the President met with influential progressives to talk about the importance of preventing a tax increase on middle class families, strengthening our economy and adopting a balanced approach to deficit reduction."

On "Fox & Friends," Doocy and Kilmeade said they were "shocked" the president met with MSNBC hosts. "Look who was invited to the White House for a briefing," an astonished Kilmeade said. "Who was left to run MSNBC?" Doocy wondered.More

A friend asked me about last week’s WSJ op-ed by Christopher Cox and Bill Archer claiming that the government’s true liabilities exceed $86 trillion—not the $16 trillion national debt that people usually talk about. There’s something to it, but there’s also a huge scary story in there that’s purely meant to frighten people.

$16 trillion is the amount of Treasury debt outstanding at the moment. The more relevant figure is the amount of debt the federal government owes to people and institutions other than itself. If, for some reason, I lent money to my wife and she promised to pay it back to me, we wouldn’t count that as part of the debt owed by our household. The debt owed to the public is about $10 trillion these days.

So where do Cox and Archer get $86 trillion? They are counting the present value of future unfunded liabilities. To take one example, if you add up all the money that Medicare Part A is expected to pay out over the next 75 years and figure out how much it would be worth today, you get a total of $21.2 trillion. If you add up all the money that Medicare Part A will bring in from payroll taxes and do the same, you get $15.6 trillion. So to make Medicare Part A balance over seventy-five years, the government would have to have $5.6 trillion that it doesn’t have today. Do the same for all of Medicare and you get a total of $38.6 trillion. This is all from Table V.F2 on page 238 of the latest trustees’ report on the Medicare trust funds. (Cox and Archer, who claim to be citing the same source, have $42.8 trillion in their op-ed; maybe they’re using an infinite time horizon instead of a 75-year timeframe.)

For reasons beyond my personal control, I recently found myself snarling through the long and winding bowels of the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport ...which, if you haven't had the pleasure and so are unaware, is quite possibly the most preposterous travel hub north of the equator. As I finally managed to stagger my way to the end of another endless hallway that led, allegedly, to the 'Exit' doors, I came upon an impromptu party.

There were maybe fifty people standing behind the security perimeter, some holding American flags, some holding "Welcome Home!" signs, some in uniform. All of them were looking down the hallway I had just emerged from. About ten strides behind me was an Army sergeant in camo carrying a duffel. I stopped to analyze this crowd, he walked past me, and the crowd erupted in cheers and applause. Ah, I thought. This is a welcome-home party for that sergeant ... but the sergeant only tipped the applauding crowd a wave before continuing on his way.

Another man in uniform emerged from the hallway, and the assembled crowd lit up again.

Now that student loans are undeniably in bubble territory, the officialdom is starting to wake up and take notice. Evidence that students were taking on so much debt as a group that it was undermining their ability to be Good American Consumers wasn’t enough. A recent New York Fed study found that 94% of recent graduates had borrowed to help pay for their education, and average debt levels among student borrowers is $23,000. Remember, that average includes seasoned borrowers, who presumably borrowed less and also in many cases reduced the principal amount of their loans, so the average amount borrowed by recent grads is certain to be higher. Student debt is senior to all other consumer debt; unlike, say, credit card balances, Social Security payments can be garnished to pay delinquencies. As a result, it has contributed to the fall in the homeownership rate, since many young people who want to buy a house can’t because their level of student debt prevents them from getting a mortgage.

But despite some pious noises about the burden that student loans place on young Americans, there’s been no willingness in the officialdom to do much about it. But that may finally be changing. The latest Federal Reserve data is grim.

Student loan delinquencies are getting into nosebleed territory. The Wall Street Journal, citing New York Fed data, tells us that student debt outstanding increased 4.6% in the last quarter. Repeat: in the last quarter. Annualized, that’s a 19.7% rate of increase* during a period when other consumer borrowings were on the decline.

And this growth is taking place while borrower distress is becoming acute. 11% of the loans were 90+ days delinquent, up from 8.9% at the close of last quarter. The underlying credit picture is certain to be worse, since many borrowers aren’t even required to service loans (as in they are still in school or have gotten a postponement, which is available to the unemployed for a short period). And it was the only type of consumer debt to show rising delinquency rates.

The Internal Revenue Service announced today that one of the best metrics available to determine the economic growth or decline of every county and state in the nation will end. Unofficially, the IRS Statistics of Income Division attributes the decision to cancel the program, which dates back to 1991, to coordination issues with the U.S. Census Bureau. There is no official word yet on why the program was cancelled.

Jim Pettit, an independent public policy analyst, who used the tax data to define trends in Maryland's overall tax base and its 24 jurisdictions and counties, regrets the decision.

"The IRS tax migration data is the best indicator we have of how state and local governments are doing in developing their tax base," said Pettit. "If there is no effective way to monitor changes in the tax base in the context of macro-economic trends, then state and local governments are at a severe disadvantage in making key legislative, regulatory and fiscal policies that address the challenges of funding government budgets."

According to the IRS, the mobility of Americans has long been a subject of interest. One of the few sources of area-to-area migration data in the United States is the Statistics of Income Division of the IRS, which maintains address records of all individual income tax forms filed each year.

Change Maryland reported IRS tax migration findings in July, determining that Maryland accounted for the largest taxpayer migration exodus of any state in the region between 2007 and 2010, with a net migration resulting in nearly 31,000 residents having left the state. The report also identified Maryland's key competitor in attracting taxpayers.

Virginia is now home to 11,455 former Marylanders, taking $390 million in taxable incomes during this three-year period. Following Virginia, Marylanders opted for North Carolina.

Nationally, Maryland did not fair much better. Maryland joins high-taxed, rust belt states including New York, California, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio and New Jersey among states with the largest mass exodus between 2007 and 2010. Maryland saw the seventh-highest negative net migration after these states. In all, Maryland lost $1.7 billion in taxable incomes during this three year period.

The report's findings prompted a political attack of Change Maryland and it's founder Larry Hogan by the O'Malley Administration in merely reporting the data. The Administration response attempted to frame the debate as a class warfare issue where none existed.

"A growing tax base is the ultimate win/win situation in public policy," said Change Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan upon the release of the July report. "It eases the pressure to raise revenues, and conversely, a shrinking tax base often leads to a troublesome tax-and-spend downward spiral as actual revenues fail to meet estimates."

Many other organizations have reported the IRS data in recent years including a variety of think tanks, most notably the Tax Foundation and media outlets such as Forbes.

The IRS encourages interested parties to submit any letters of concern about this decision to them at sis@irs.gov and they will funnel comments up through the appropriate channels for review.

Just like the "War on Drugs," the "War on Terror" has been an utter failure.The Institute for Economics and Peace's new "Global Terrorism Index" has discovered a dramatic increase in the number of terrorist attacks around the world since 9/11. This increase is a result of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as our drone wars in Pakistan and other nearby nations. Following a drop-off in terror after 9/11, there was a quick upsurge following the invasion of Iraq. And today, the nations we're most actively engaged in – Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan – account for more than 50% of worldwide terrorism-related fatalities. One of the lead authors of the report warned that military interventions clearly lead to increases in terrorism among enraged local populations. While the United States has avoided another 9/11, our military misadventures and drone strikes in the Middle East have radicalized populations and spawned the equivalent of multiple 9/11s all around the world, killing thousands of innocent civilians. "Wars on abstractions" like drugs or terror never work. Time to create a new future in which we're not at constant war against vague threats.

In a radio interview[15], Wall Street Journal reporter Julia Angwin (who’s been one of the best at covering the surveillance state in the US) made a simple observation that puts much of this into context: the US surveillance regime has more data on the average American[16] than the Stasi ever did on East Germans.

Indeed, the American government has more information on the average American than Stalin had on Russians, Hitler had on German citizens, or any other government has ever had on its people.

As the top spy chief at the U.S. National Security Agency explained[22] this week, the American government is collecting some 100 billion 1,000-character emails per day, and 20 trillion communications of all types per year.

He says that the government has collected all of the communications of congressional leaders, generals and everyone else in the U.S. for the last 10 years.

He further explains that he set up the NSA’s system so that all of the information would automatically be encrypted, so that the government had to obtain a search warrant based upon probably cause before a particular suspect’s communications could be decrypted. But the NSA now collects all data in an unencrypted form, so that no probable cause is needed to view any citizen’s information. He says that it is actually cheaper and easier to store the data in an encrypted format: so the government’s current system is being done for political – not practical – purposes.

He says that if anyone gets on the government’s “enemies list”, then the stored information will be used to target them. Specifically, he notes that if the government decides it doesn’t like someone, it analyzes all of the data it has collected on that person and his or her associates over the last 10 years to build a case against him.

AQUA BAR - CITY CENTER - DOWNTOWN PLAZA

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.

Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.

And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.

Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.

Fast forward to today, when the same senator, now president, is openly threatening with using a veto to impose his will on raising the debt ceiling over that of what, at least according to the Congress, is still the majority of Americans.

The Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) late last month engaged in a concentrated and focused effort to combat impaired driving and underage drinking and is pledging more of the same in the coming weeks.

In conjunction with a national program conducted by law enforcement agencies in Maryland around the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the OCPD in late November participated in Project SOLO, or Saving Our Loved Ones. An extension or expansion of standard enforcement efforts, Project SOLO deployed mass patrols on area roads known to have higher instances of alcohol-related crashes.

“Impaired driving is a grave issue that results in the death of someone in Maryland every 57 hours,” said OCPD Chief Bernadette DiPino this week. “Just one loss of life is one too many and a dedicated effort such as Project SOLO will help reduce such preventable, shocking consequences from happening on our roadways.”More

Former President George W. Bush stressed the importance of immigration on Tuesday at a speech in Dallas, throwing himself back in the ring as the debate over reform heats up in Washington. "Immigrants come with new skills and new ideas. They fill a critical part in our labor market. They work hard for a better life," Bush said at the event, hosted by the George W. Bush Institute and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. – Huffington Post

Dominant Social Theme: Immigrants reinvigorate our collective soul.

Free-Market Analysis: Okay, we made up the headline. George W. Bush has never publicly said that Canada, Mexico and the US should merge into one great big North American Union.

But in our view, he might as well have said it.

He spent a good bit of his second term sneaking around and holding confidential meetings with top leaders of Canada and Mexico. The security deals he made more closely combined civil and military policing, from what we can tell.

And today, of course, there is a "constitution free" zone between Canada and the US where authorities can act unimpeded by such pesky restraints as laws designed to protect people from unnecessary search and seizure.

Coincidence? Toward the end of his term, Bush made a desperate effort to further immigration reform in the US but was soundly rebuffed. What was not widely reported was that Bush's public effort was merely the capstone of years of private efforts to apparently move the US, Canada and Mexico toward a closer "cooperation."

Less than a year after it began the service, Allegiant Air last week announced it was no longer offering flights from the Salisbury-Ocean City-Wicomico Regional Airport.

Last February, Allegiant Air announced it was beginning low-cost, non-stop flights from Salisbury to Orlando, Fla. The new flights operated twice weekly to Orlando Sanford International Airport and carried as many as 150 passengers on each flight. The company offered fares as low as $69.99 one way between the two cities and also offered incentives such as hotel stays for passengers booking the flights.However, last week Allegiant Air abruptly announced it was discontinuing the service.

“We are always disappointed to end service in a market,” said Allegiant Travel Company Manager of Airports Eric Fletcher. “We thank Salisbury-Ocean City Wicomico Regional Airport for their partnership and apologize to any travelers who are inconvenienced by this decision.”More

Salisbury, MD – For years, the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center has brought high school basketball players together in competition over the holiday break. In 2010 Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley placed a unique spin on this tradition by issuing a challenge to Delaware’s Governor Jack Markell. The wager: a Maryland Smith Island Cake to a Delaware Peach Pie. The inaugural Governor’s Challenge Basketball Tournament was born as a result, bringing with it a new level of excitement to the holiday basketball tradition seen on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The tradition continues this year in Salisbury’s Wicomico Youth & Civic Center. Tipping off on Wednesday, December 26th, 37 teams will go head to head on the NCAA 94’ regulated courts of the Normandy Arena. Play will run through Saturday, December 29th. In addition to tournament play, highlights include a Dr. Pepper 3-Point Contest on Thursday, December 27th at 5:30pm followed by the Dr. Pepper Slam Dunk Contest just a few hours later at 8:00pm.

All-Access Passes are available in advance, offering admission every day to every game for $30 adults / $15 for students with identification. Passes can be purchased online at www.SalisburyChampionships.org or at the WY&CC Box Office (M-F; 8am-6pm; closed Christmas). At the gate, daily admission is available for $10 adults / $5 for students. Children under 11 are admitted free of charge.

For more information, tickets and a complete schedule visit www.SalisburyChampionships.org. Teams and/or schedule may change as the competition nears.

The grocery chain Giant Food has partnered with the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation to collect toys for underprivileged children.

Giant, based in Landover, Md., also donated $25,000 last week to support children in need across the mid-Atlantic region. Toys will be collected at 170 Giant stores throughout the holiday season.

This year marks the second year of a partnership between the two organizations.

The Marine Toys for Tots Foundation is a not-for-profit organization authorized by the U.S. Marine Corps and the Department of Defense to provide fundraising and other necessary support for the annual U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program. Now in its 65th year, Toys for Tots provides gifts to less fortunate children during the Christmas season.